No wonder the public are confused about investing when everyone and their granny has a different way of looking at things. Some people follow fund managers, some follow fund companies, others will look at what is happening in the world and pick companies affected – and so on and on. As I said it seems that everyone has their own way of looking at things, and they all have their merits, but I would say that you need to treat all of this with a bit of perspective.

If you follow a fund manager, you would need to look at what he or she was good at and then analyse what areas they plan to move into. Similarly if you follow fund companies – do they have the necessary expertise in the new field ? If you look at what is happening in the world and pick companies that will benefit from that, then you need to take into account size etc – this might only represent say 5% of that market – and so on. I would say that there are disadvantages for all of these approaches, because before you invest your hard earned cash – you need some kind of solidity to your facts. If you build your house on sand – then it will be a disaster, whereas if you build it on solid ground – then you can only go up.

What we do at MAP is use facts only and so we are hoping to minimise any subjectivity at all – which is what a lot of other people do when they give you their OPINION. What MAP does on a regular basis is analyse funds to see what their long term AND short term performance is and then we only use and recommend funds that have both of these, so what we end up with is a fund that has good consistency over the long term and is also performing short term – what could be better. MAP does the long term analysis every calendar quarter, and the short term performance analysis every week, and so this allows you to look out for the trends over the weeks and months and that will give anyone a better understanding of things.

This method means that biases, prejudices, feeling etc are all kept out of the mix and we only look at ACTUAL performances. Personally we don’t think that it can get any better than this.

The material is for general information only and does not constitute

The material is for general information only and does not constitute investment, tax, legal or other form of advice. You should not rely on this information to make (or refrain from making) any decisions. Links to external sites are for information only and do not constitute endorsement. Always obtain independent professional advice for your own particular situation. Money Advice & Planning Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. For any enquiries, contact Andrew on 07957 836211 or enquiries@mapfinances.co.uk